they summarized the testimony that the bill clinton chief of staff last year gave about what he thought might kind of be a workable budget deal way back then. because bowles is a democrat, the republicans thought they he could try to pretend that agreeing with a single democrat means that they are actually willing to compromise big time even though erskine bowles is a very easy democrat to negotiate with, unlike the actual elected democrats in washington. in other words, erskine bowles is willing to compromise on things or was willing to compromise on things that the democrats are not willing to co comp pro mice on. which means that it's utterly meaningless on your way to try to get a deal with the president of the united states. erskine bowles' proposal included a $600 billion cut in medicare spending which he achieved by raising the medicare eligibility age. so republicans just proposed raising the eligibility age for medicare, a proposal that polls show is supported by a full 30% of the american people and rejected by only 67% of them. white house communications director dan fi offic